


And On The Road Are You And Me

by JDylah_da_Kyllah



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Jedi Apprentice Series - Jude Watson & Dave Wolverton, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alien Biology, Alien Culture, Backstory, Breaking Celibacy Vows, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Celibacy, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotionally Repressed, Everyone Needs A Hug, Falling In Love, Fictional Religion & Theology, First Kiss, First Time, Forbidden Love, Force Bond (Star Wars), Friendship, Friendship/Love, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Headcanon, Hurt/Comfort, Illustrated, Interspecies Awkwardness, Interspecies Relationship(s), Interspecies Romance, Jedi Code (Star Wars), M/M, Making Love, Male Friendship, Male-Female Friendship, Master & Padawan Relationship(s), Multi, Multimedia, Non-Penetrative Sex, Not Canon Compliant, Original Character(s), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rare Pairings, Sexual Repression, Tags Are Fun, Tags Contain Spoilers, Tags May Change, Telepathy, Tentacles, Unrequited Love, War, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-18 12:35:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29982939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JDylah_da_Kyllah/pseuds/JDylah_da_Kyllah
Summary: Kit Fisto could hide much behind a smile; Bant Eerin, behind silver eyes. The both of them enigmas, they were well-matched as Master and apprentice--and as the closest friends and confidantes of Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi.But many years before, Kit could only hope to console a self-tortured Qui-Gon--reeling at the Fall of Xanatos, his Padawan--by luring him to the planet of Mon Cala, where swirled rumors of a Force-sensitive among the newly-spawned.Deep within the water-dark, a tiny spark within the Living Force waited patiently, knowing herself to be of greater Light . . .Or: "And all the light, will be, will be,And all the future prophecy,And all the waves, the sea, the sea,And on the road are you and me."
Relationships: Bant Eerin & Kit Fisto, Bant Eerin & Obi-Wan Kenobi, Kit Fisto & Qui-Gon Jinn, Kit Fisto/Qui-Gon Jinn, Qui-Gon Jinn/Obi-Wan Kenobi
Kudos: 2
Collections: Master Apprentice Archive, Star Wars





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> **If a work not being canon compliant gets your goat, I encourage you to read this Note in its entirety before making the decision to dive in or not. :)**
> 
> Personally, I'm a stickler for canon but not quite following it here. Suffice it to say that I'm trying my best to keep things in the spirit of _Star Wars_ while bending the rules just a bit.
> 
> I despise Filoni's _Clone Wars_ so I'm skipping all of that. The Kit herein is not that Kit in any way, nor the Kit of the EU comics (who kicked off the whole "He has a relationship with Aayla Secura" thing). Incidentally I couldn't find any info on his age, so in my head he and Qui-Gon are contemporaries--he seems old enough to be so, anyway.
> 
> While I'm vaguely using my knowledge of Nautolan and Mon Calamari physiology / culture from the EU, I'm also making up equal parts (if not more-so).
> 
> And while George himself has said he never envisioned the Jedi to be celibate, that's sure what he implies in the prequels (indeed, celibacy seems to be in complete congruity with what we're shown of them in the PT). As such, I'm approaching the Jedi Order as, in effect, a monastic one--up to and including vows of celibacy. (A few of the EU authors picked up on this thread as well.)
> 
> Additionally, I'm playing fast and loose with the _Jedi Apprentice_ canon; to preemptively clarify divergences:
> 
> * Bant has only and ever been Kit's Padawan  
> 
> * Qui-Gon has never been in love with Tahl (who will be making absolutely no appearances)  
> 
> * Obi-Wan never left the Order on Melida/Daan  
> 
> * Xanatos was Qui-Gon's only prior Padawan  
> 
> * Kit and Qui-Gon have known each other since they were younglings. (I think there's a detail in one of the books of Kit only meeting Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan once Bant becomes his apprentice . . . )  
> 
> * While the incident with Bruck and Bant's near-death still happens, the ongoing bullying Obi-Wan receives by Bruck doesn't happen (simply because I cannot fathom that such behavior would occur at the Jedi Temple, of all places).
> 
> Finally! To my fellow Qui-Gon / Obi-Wan folks--it _will_ be there, though not for a long while yet. However, it's a very important part of the story in how it affects Kit and Bant alike, which is why I tossed it in as a main relationship.
> 
> The title and "Or" come from Enya's ["The Humming"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7D8Akveb2U).
> 
> Thank you oh-so-much for reading; comments are always welcome, and I do hope you enjoy! <3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She'd almost died in the Room of a Thousand Fountains before . . . and now she knows she will.

_. . . back she stumbles, back into the cool-blessed waters—blood-thick, muddied at her ankles with debris and the messiness of death. She deflects the bolts with care: she will wound, but never kill . . ._

* * *

* * *

The soft-babbled song of the fountains is lost, the silver peace shattered, drowned in the spray of blaster-fire ricocheting off the rocks, scorching foliage, refracted into scattered shards on broken waters. Bant staggers at the bank of the deepest pool, the familiar soil torn and foreign there beneath her bootsoles—as with terrible, inexorable precision the whole of the galaxy seems so.

The Force roils and heaves, crashing against her: a tumultuous sea beating at the shore and the stones, tidepools burst their rocky bounds and running over like sucking wounds—

Her hands are slick with blood and she tightens her grip, suckered palms digging into the grooves of her lightsaber’s hilt. The green blade casts wild shadows as it whispers in the subtle turnings of Soresu, smearing itself in eerie reflections across the alabaster armor of the clones. Faceless shadows, nothing more: men a million strong bearing but the face of one . . .

The barrage of blaster-fire hails down upon her head; back she stumbles, back into the cool-blessed waters—blood-thick, muddied at her ankles with debris and the messiness of death. She deflects the bolts with care: she will wound, but never kill—even as she grimly knows that such as this will seal her fate. Out of the corners of her eyes she can see the silhouetted shapes of bodies floating in the desecrated pools: deadpoints screaming harried echoes in the Living Force— _There is no death, there is no death, but oh—but_ why _?_

One by one, the blue, green blades around her flare bright and flicker out: the Jedi—Padawans and Masters both—driven into this last sanctuary, fallen. Bant closes her eyes, searching, reaching—met with nothing more than death, than younglings’ terror and confusion terribly and quickly snuffed, than sheer and utter disbelief as one by one—

And at whose hand—

She thinks of Qui-Gon, and grief all but sinks paralyzing-twisting claws into her heart: all the suffering caused by his convictions, hopes, in a prophecy that once seemed some saving grace but now—

Burning pain bites and pours itself throughout her body, leeching the feeling from her webbed fingers, already slick against her saber’s hilt. Bant wraps herself within the Force, within the Light that will shine beyond this Darkness—oh, the Light that _must_ —allowing it to run over her as water, clear and cold—the memory of Kit’s hand upon her shoulder, his razor-toothed smile—

_There is no death, but oh—_

A crimson bolt flares _bright_ , too close, too hot—a scream wrenched from the crude matter in a voice she hardly knows her own—and all Force-drawn borrowed-strength is gone; back-staggering, she stumbles, falls—and the churned waters close, briefly, above her head, and it feels like the first true breath she’s drawn since—

And still she fights to breathe. Moments beget moments, beget time she cannot fathom.

Silence, then: eerie and uncanny silence falls. The dull-resounding steps of men who have no need of secrecy retreat, and once again the room is still—but oh, no sacred stillness . . .

Bant’s silver eyes slip around the room, twisted in faltering throes from her awkward vantage point, floating in the pool, her body stiff. She catches nothing dear, nothing familiar, now: only the raining down of the transparisteel ceiling, blaster-shattered; only sullied soil, black-scorched rocks, bloody pools and bodies. But there are _memories_ , and oh, the water washes over her, the Light scours all the Dark misery away—and _oh_ —she can almost hear Obi-Wan’s laughter—can feel the warmth of his hands—

But it’s Kit who calls to her: Kit whose voice comes as if across the bond from all those years ago, songs and images and non-words, carried in oh-so-many artificial waterfalls. She wonders if there really are a thousand.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Fall of Qui-Gon's first Padawan, Xanatos, has all but driven the Jedi into the wasteland of his own Darkness. Kit is determined to help him find the Light.

_Qui-Gon’s voice is graveled, low, slurred and slipped to the shadows where the light does not shine upon Kit’s face. The Nautolan gives pause for a moment, hands folded in his lap . . ._

* * *

* * *

Kit studies Qui-Gon from the depths of polished onyx eyes, unblinking, realizing not for the first time that there is vital information to be found in such minute anatomy. The Human’s lids are sleepless-swollen, each reflexive twitch a touch too slow, as if it hurts; the pupils blown, the bloodshot whites, the crust gathered at the creases that gets rubbed at with a calloused hand—a rasping hiss, as if of sand. The light, too, seems disagreeable, and Qui-Gon sits with his back to the transparisteel windows pouring in the mid-bright Coruscanti day. Traces of it catch on chestnut hair, fraying loose from the tethers of a half-wrought bond at best, but oh—it’s not the light that tells Kit what he needs to know. Nor the shadows. Nor even the Force.

Qui-Gon might well be able to mask his emotions with his training, to hide them from his fellow Jedi while he scours at them with the waters of the Light, as if by sheer willpower he will make them disappear—or disappear himself. Goodness knows he’s been trying to, of late—three, five years . . . how long has it been? Kit tilts his head. Time is elusive to him, ebbing, flowing, tidal. He does not know. But it has been far long enough for . . . _this_.

Before him sits a broken man. A Jedi, once, consumed now with his own self-guilt. The Council sees it, yes, they _must_ , but what have they done except oblige each of Qui-Gon Jinn’s requests and sent him on the longest missions to the furthest worlds? Do they think the work will heal him? No. It merely makes him more a stranger to himself—

“What do you want, Kit Fisto?”

Qui-Gon’s voice is graveled, low, slurred and slipped to the shadows where the light does not shine upon Kit’s face. The Nautolan gives pause for a moment, hands folded in his lap, before reaching for the cup of tea resting at his knee. Poorly steeped, but cold and strong, just as he likes.

_Even while he loses himself to himself, he remembers such as this . . ._

“You cannot hide from me, Qui-Gon.”

There is no pride to this statement, no hyperbolic jest: only quiet certitude, soft-edged and shot straight through with durasteel. One baleful flicker of an indigo eye passes over Kit’s head-tendrils, unbound and thick about his broad shoulders. A current passes between them, a shiver in the Living Force—sluggish, uncertain, defensive—and Kit lets it ripple around him with apparent impassivity. Qui-Gon must come of his own accord—or so he thinks. One cannot force him to do anything, and rarely to persuade . . .

“Do you think you know me so well, then?” Qui-Gon’s hand half-raises his own cup, the tea undrunk, and stares into its depths as if to find an answer there. The leaden apathy worries Kit far more than if the man had merely spoken with unrefined disgust.

“Perhaps I do—perhaps I don’t.” A smile plays at the edges of Kit’s lips, pulled back almost reflexively against his teeth—a habit he knows well many find disturbing. “But we will have time enough to discuss the taste of your emotions—though you already know they are as bitter as this tea.”

“Don’t be glib.” Qui-Gon’s grip tightens, his breath a sharp, _sharp_ inhalation, and Kit’s tendrils curl, recoil, at the sudden sour spike—the crack, at last, in the façade—and the aural cracked-cry of carved wood—until he reaches with a quiet hand, kneading at the tendons, the hardened muscles, the skin stretched taut over calloused knuckle-bones.

“You’ll break the cup.”

Qui-Gon rises to his feet, a staggered, fluid motion, blotting out the scattered sun; the cup shatters into splinters, cold tea a blessing now, the tang of blood wrinkling Kit’s nose. “You said we would have time. What do you mean?”

“The Council is sending me to Mon Cala. There’s reason to believe a Force Sensitive is among this season’s newly-spawned.”

“What does this have to do with me?”

Kit is silent for a moment, setting aside the gift of his tendrils for the unpolluted will of the Force. Emotions, after all, are volatile, fragile things—perhaps, for whatever irony may be, especially among the Jedi in moments such as this, among such men as Qui-Gon—when Darkness has come with crushing stealth to steal the spirit—

What could Kit know, but that he looks upon Qui-Gon and sees him reflected in a muddied stream? That the tendrilled taste of him is, indeed, far more bitter than the tea?

He tastes of rot.

But within the Living Force, there is Qui-Gon as he’s always been: bright, verdant, _vital_ , reaching toward the Light with roots fixed firmly in the soil, drinking deeply from the waters that will never dry—the teachings of the Order, the tenets of the Code. But Darkness has come, and torn the leaves and shaken him, shaken to the tenderest clinging root.

“If you do not come with me to Mon Cala, what will you do until the Council sends for you again?” There is nothing soft in the grimace that twists the Nautolan’s features now, but neither is his face unkind. Sometimes Qui-Gon himself is a hard-edged man, with little patience for half-measures, and for the moment Kit concedes to offer none. “Sit with you back to the sun? Neglect your _katas_? Fail to feed yourself, to meditate, to sleep? Stew in your thoughts as well as the sweat of your flesh?”

In kind, at last, he stands, the stone floor cool beneath his bare-soled feet. He is tall among his kind, as Qui-Gon among his, and they stand eye to eye, nearly touching, while Kit fishes for the Human’s hand, the shards, the tea-damp skin, the sluggish trails of blood. He need not look to pick out splinters, and Qui-Gon’s breath becomes a shuddered hiss, for Kit is slow and quiet in his work.

“How long can this continue, hm? How deep, how Dark, this guilt of yours? Do you wait for the Light to burnish you brightly, or the waters to cleanse, if you merely sit here and do nothing?”

“I do not _want_ —”

Ah—and there—the crack widens, apathy bursting into clenched-toothed grating sound, the Force snaring around Qui-Gon, darting, stabbing, inwards, out—a storm, a tempest, tossing him, borne of himself and hurtling him towards his own destruction.

Kit tilts his head, pressing Qui-Gon’s hand more tightly, waiting for the blood to clot. There is too much at stake, and little of it worth a war of words—such paltry weapons. Time, then—such a linear affair for his friend, that it can bear him only forward . . . Time, then, and the Force.

* * *

The shuttle is sparsely furnished, but sparse in kind are its passengers: few have reason to travel to Mon Cala, except for trade, and most economic activity comes to a halt on the water-planet during spawning-season. The runner lights sigh with a twilit luminescence, and not for the first time does Kit appreciate the comforts given from one aquatic species to another. The shuttle air—recycled and somewhat stale now, after a week—is nevertheless kept cool and damp. The pilot, after all, is a Mon Calamari herself: most of the beings on her shuttle are returning home, expectant of good news.

Qui-Gon has become a quiet shadow, ever at Kit’s side. The Council, unasked, had quite simply ordered the two of them to go together to Mon Cala: the testing and possible retrieval of a new Initiate was never done alone. The Nautolan had found himself breathing easier since then, taking it on good faith that the assignment was no mere coincidence. Perhaps more succinctly that Qui-Gon’s suffering, his dangerous treading of the precipice twixt Light and Dark, had not gone unnoticed.

And so the week on the shuttle has been little more than a bland, predictable routine: Kit adopts Human circadian rhythms and treats Qui-Gon almost as a youngling, presiding over his meals, his sleep, his daily meditations. Strangely, for a man so proud as Qui-Gon Jinn, he encounters no resistance—though perhaps it’s a comfort to his friend, being absolved for the moment of all responsibility. Someone else directing him, that he need do no more than allow himself to be swept along by the current of another being’s whims.

It’s not befitting of a Jedi—but better than the melancholia which otherwise would drown him.

But in other ways he grants Qui-Gon his peace. Never, as before, does he allow the Human’s emotions to unduly pass across his tendrils—and for that, Kit is glad of the shuttle’s pervasive jubilation. It becomes far easier to let himself be lost to that tide, the ebb and flow of excitement, uncertainty: a kaleidoscopic swirling of hope and joy.

Even as they carry with them their own secret hope and joy: it is rare enough for the Order to gain a new Initiate, and rarer still that they become a Padawan, let alone a Knight—

And something in that thought twists at Kit’s hearts.

Qui-Gon has strapped himself into his seat for the landing on Mon Cala; he eyes are closed, his breathing slow. Kit studies the Force surrounding him with careful tread, not so much keeping himself hidden as being unobtrusive, tactfully observant. The exultation of the beings around them has risen to a swell and crest in dazzled, dancing Light and now seems sacred-calm: he can see in silver, yellow eyes, in wide-mouthed smiles, wonder.

And in Qui-Gon—

The week and Kit’s fussing and the waters of the Light have restored to the Human much of his former strength, at least in limb, and the sacrosanct gravity of their mission has apparently dawned on him at last and drawn his spirit from the Darkness. If only for the moment—it is, after all, such a delicate time.

Kit smiles and allows himself to sink into the currents of the Force, to float on threads of consciousness—the durasteel of the ship, forged in flame; the stars; the inky vault; the vast, vast waters of the planet below. Oh, the waters below—

Searching for the single Force-willed spark among billions.

* * *

It ebbed and flowed like the ocean current, and at first she thought it _was_.

But slowly, as the world coalesced into dappled light and shadow, a thousand shades of blue, and as the sac around her burst and her body grew and she knew true tidal ebb and flow, and cold and warmth, she knew it was far more. Primordial, profound.

Around her were the shapes, sharpening, of a hundred kin in kind. But they were more than what merely she could _see_ —

She could feel their energy as if her own, distinct and shadow-bright, gathering unto themselves as they all grew a spark, a thrum, a pulse beyond the visible beating of their hearts. And oh, it was so warm, this energy; so soft, this water-Light—

It cradled her and sang to her and she knew nothing but wholeness, but what it was to _be_.

Until she realized that the others could not feel it. Not even the _ptamari_ , however much he thrummed with ancient wisdom, with careworn love and solemn joy. With a fin bearing the vestiges of gathering marrow and bone, she’d pointed to the sun, swimming in a cloud-strewn sky. What other word, what word at all—?

_Yes_ , he signed, wide toothless mouth cracked wide in a smile, peering through rheumy eyes at his bright-gazed charge among a hundred charges, no bigger than the suckers on his palms. _Yes, that is the sun._

But not the sun—nor even a thousand suns—

And he hadn’t understood, and she’d trembled as if caught in a coldswell, trembled despite the warmth without heat, the light—the _Light_ —

What else to do but grow and wait and be?

Until something stirs and calls at last—she feels it— _them_ —two distant echoes, half-glimpsed whisperings as if the pinprick stars tossed on the tide—the sky she’s never really seen except beneath the ocean’s sway.

* * *

The sun beats down on Mon Cala, the planet-sweeping waters cavorting with the white-edged light. Kit allows his lidless eyes to adjust beneath the hooded cowl of his robe, observing the passengers making their way from the shuttle, laden with humble luggage. Dwellings of duracrete and plasteel line the cobblestoned docks; adults may live indeed with one foot on the soil of any of a hundred worlds, their gaze fixed to the stars, but their children are born to the oceans—and some part of them, he knows, has never left, will never leave. Some part draws them back, season to season, for this: the celebration of the newspawn, held in the _ptamari_ ’s care until the Ceremony of Emergence—

He wonders, perhaps, if that is an added blessing of the Force: the universe is all his home, and everywhere the water, everywhere the Light.

But oh, he tastes the sweetsalt on his lips and can’t help but shiver with anticipation.

“Are you ready, Qui-Gon?”

At his side, the Human fishes an aquata breather from his belt, drawing in one last breath of fresh, thick air. “Let’s go meet the _ptamari._ ”

Together they walk to the edge of the longest pier, drawing curious glances; ripples of wonder, uncertainty, delight wash across Kit’s consciousness along the Living Force. It’s well-known, perhaps even secretly desired, among the Mon Calamari why two brown-robed Jedi Knights would come here at this time.

In a singular gesture, as if they are one flesh, Kit and Qui-Gon step from the weather-worn stone, plunging into the ocean’s depths.

* * *

Tidewashed sunrays slant east; waterlogged clothing and boots pull the Jedi down, even as they strike out toward the light. The Council had briefed them on where to find the cove among the reefs—where the newspawn spent their first formative months, metamorphosing from embryos in fragile sacs to seaworthy begotten sons and daughters. It would take a full rotation of Mon Cala around its sun for any of them to set foot upon the shore. To breathe the air, to see at last, the stars, with steady eyes, unswayed by the ocean’s undulating push and pull, its mercurial love with the scarce, scarce land.

The salt is comforting to Kit; he has heard that the waters of Glee Anselm are bitter, but he’s never known—or can’t recall. But so little of that seems to matter—everywhere the water, everywhere the Light—

Beside him, his shadow stroke for stroke, is Qui-Gon, aquata breather firm between pursed lips, the bubbles of his exhalations dancing languidly up towards the sun. The Nautolan can feel his friend’s consciousness half-slipped from his body, a trance, sunk into the currents far stronger than any ocean tide, the Living Force of which he is so enamored, ah, so _inextricable_ —

And for oh-so-brief a moment Kit feels from Qui-Gon, tastes as whole-soft-sweetness there across his tendrils, what he hasn’t sensed in years—

Peace. And purpose. Not running from the Darkness, but a quietude, a certitude, that here and now is exactly where he needs to be.

Searching . . .

And Kit wonders as they near the cove if there isn’t some comfort in the task before them thus—unto Qui-Gon most specifically, for between them Kit alone can speak, and all the Human need do is reach with open hands, to receive the newspawn of the Light. If so there is—

Something wild dances in Kit’s hearts. He’s almost sure there is.

* * *

The _ptamari_ regards them both with rheumy eyes. Around him flash a hundred tiny, pale-salmon-hued bodies, glitter-bright gazes of silver and gold. Kit spreads his hands wide, shifting himself with rhythmic grace to keep himself steady, offering the signs of greeting, goodwill.

_The Human._ The _ptamari_ ’s gestures are short, clipped with age, with stiffened joints, with a mild sense of bemusement that tickles at Kit’s tendrils.

Kit twists to glance at Qui-Gon, hovering nearby, limp but for the same quiet shifting undulations. His eyes are closed, his copper hair fanned out about his head, his clothes billowing about his frame until even he, a mountainous man, seems small and fragile. The whole of his true being, his consciousness, now focused on the newspawn, those starshine pinpricks of life—and the crude matter all forgotten.

_His name is Qui-Gon Jinn, and he is a Jedi, as myself._

_This I know._ Impatient comes the oceansong—the interplay of gesture, sound, words-beyond-words. _He has a silver weapon of light. What else could he be?_

_He means no disrespect,_ Kit adds hastily, _but that he is searching in the Force for the one who’s called us here._

_This too I know. Rare it is that your kind come here to spirit our newspawn away to the stars—but well enough do I remember._ There is, Kit can sense, no animosity—only something wistful, an almost intangible yearning, a curiosity at a life lived so differently from what his own has been.

He nods, the _ptamari_ turning away to tend his charges, the conversation hanging as driftwood between them, unfinished and uncertain of the finishing. Kit eases himself beside Qui-Gon, the Force almost blinding: the echoed eddies of his friend’s energy, the trance, the calling— _Here we are, brother, sister. Come._ Transcendent, the song of one spirit to another, the summons of one star to all the billions-suns—

The spawn all still gather ’round the _ptamari_ —but one—fighting across the current-sway, silver eyes tracking first the bubbles burst from the aquata breather, then down, down to the form of the being not meant for her world who finds himself here anyway, all in the service of the Light.

* * *

And oh, the Light—

In them both—

But he—

But this one—

There is something broken in the Light.

* * *

Kit lets his sight grow dim, not so much reaching as receiving—for in this moment, oh, he knows this moment’s not really for him—but there, that tiny salmon-skinned spawn, the silver-eyed, who’d braved the current on fins bearing vestigial bones at best—she looks upon Qui-Gon with neither fear nor wonder but—

_~ still-soft-quiet-soothing-waterLight-song / I sing / here-reach-here-come-I-am / you-are ~_

—love—

And she—little spirit of the Living Force, the vessel of the Cosmic—she is clarion and clear and Kit can _hear_ her, swears he does, in that same deep-primordial hush as one finds in the darkest depths of oceans, where there is no light and the weight of the world is heavy: the waters that birthed life in the beginning of all worlds pressing in to crush it. That beautiful, terrible balance, eternally kept . . .

Qui-Gon’s eyes flicker open, blinking sharply against the fresh-wrought sting of salt. The languid trail of bubbles from the breather grows to quickened measure, a hard exhale, and slowly that indigo gaze shifts to meet Kit’s lidless own.

In one cupped hand of iron-muscled sinews, bones, he cradles her. She looks up at him, then over to _him_ and Kit can feel his hearts hammering within his chest. He has never known a moment such as this—the finding of a Force-sensitive—nor has Qui-Gon. Each has felt, of course, the thrum of life within the Force, the promised gathering, the spark, the cells amassed, the unhatched egg with sleeping-embryo, the zygote freshly sown in mother’s womb—and through all of this that energy, that Light, flowing, current-without-source, current-without-end—and all of it sacred, all of it true—

But here—

But she—

The profundity of the moment shakes him to his core.

Qui-Gon’s gaze slips back to hers, and Kit turns back to the _ptamari_ , willing his hands not to tremble as he offers signs, the oceansong low between them. _She is why we’ve come._

* * *

She hugs the warmth of his hand with her body, all fragile soft-carapace, all boned-finned extremities, fused limbs, curling to match the swells and crevices, the broad planes, the rough callouses, the beating blood hushing through his veins. She can hear the rhythmic basso of his heart, and it strikes complement within her own. There is still something broken in the Light but—

Still he bears that Light, brimming over, green-bright. She laughs, soundless, voiceless—wordless song—for he, too, has no tongue . . . And slowly, slowly, she can feel it catch him, too, this laughter-melody, this—oh, this terrible, beautiful thing that can shatter and shape whole again the whole of one, of all—

The Light, she sees, is _everywhere_ —

He cradles her, yes, and draws her close to his chest, the thunder now pounding out within her ear canals, shiver-shattering—but it is the most gorgeous sound she has heard. And she hears, as clear as anything, as aural wordsongs, though she knows not what a voice in unwatered air might be—nor in what language he speaks—oh she hears him _calling_ —

_Will you come with us—receive the Light?_

* * *

The _ptamari_ ’s energy crackles across the ocean, splitting as stabbing roots through the sand-strewn floor, sparking up to dance a-whirl with the dappled sun. There is, Kit tastes, both joy and a reluctant sorrow-strain.

_You will take her_ , the _ptamari_ says after a moment. There is no challenge, no inquiry, no particular emotion caught between the signs.

_The Force is strong with her_ , Kit answers slowly, uncertain, wishing he had words or signs with which to speak of what this tiny little newspawn has wrought within mere moments in his friend. There are no miracles within the galaxy, as some beings claim—but oh, there is hope, and Light, and beings who bear both—and sometimes, sometimes, such beings as who need and such beings as can give might each find the other.

_But we will not take her against her will—or yours._

The _ptamari_ hisses a chuckle. _I have heard you Jedi say that the Force has a will. Can you contend against it? Defy it? Or does it weave our destinies?_

_The Force speaks to us. We try to do its will, to live in accordance with the Jedi Code—to walk always in the Light. But any of us can fall—can walk in Darkness . . . Do as we will, for good or evil._ Kit casts a glance back towards Qui-Gon, who has again sunk within himself, the trance, the silver-washed water-Light. _Even such as we—and she._

The _ptamari_ reaches for his hand—sharp, quick—an intrusive, desperate gesture—the age-cracked carapaces of his body woven darker in a sudden burst of sunlight from above, broken through the clouds, poured down, diffused, into the depths. _Keep her in the Light_.

Kit has no answer—cannot. Who is he to know another being’s destiny? What can he offer but paltry promises that will mean so little to he who does not know their Code—their life? She will be safe with them on the journey back to Coruscant—and shielded in the Temple for all her youngling years—

But for all that, he can make no guarantees.

And this, it seems, the _ptamari_ knows despite himself. He bows his head, trailing patterns on the back of Kit’s hand, before his clouded eyes close and the signs come slowly, tracing-cast. _Then permit me at the least to give her blessing—_

Kit squeezes the ancient hand in both his own. _Always._

Tremors pass through both of them, energy-flickerings cascading, and he hears the call returned from her—that little silver-Light-one—and from Qui-Gon, oh, steadfast even in his grief, even in his undoing and his Darkness—steadfast now for this and now, Kit senses, now for good—

Not for the first time in his life does he wish that he could close his eyes. The sweetsalt has begun to burn, and he searches through the Force for the inexhaustible river, for the waters-clear, while the _ptamari_ ’s tears add, drop by drop, unnoticed, to the oceantide, as he gives name to the little newspawn of the Light.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Returned from Mon Cala, Qui-Gon and Kit find themselves called before the Council.

There is so much _noise_.

True enough it comes in hypertrophied decibels, pounding through the water, bouncing off the transparisteel walls of the container. And true enough this overwhelms her. But all the more—alluring, repelling—is the scattered Light, split and refracted as the colors of countless beings’ impulses, desires—living, undulating energy. _Wild_. So different from her brothers’, sisters’—uncorrupted new-life, all of them—and the _ptamari_ ’s—who was so old and wise and if not unfiltered-pure then _good_.

And so different from the two of _them_ —

It’s the green-Light-broken-one who often wraps her water-sloshed vessel in his arms and holds it close, so that she can feel the rhythms of his body: the bellows of his lungs, the thump of his heart, the kindred blood-hush that binds them in a way she cannot comprehend, but somehow knows. He soothes her, comforts her, swaddles her in the Light and tells her not to be afraid—not for being in the belly of a great durasteel-wrought beast, the rumbling of motion, the thrust and lurch and _oh_ something crackles in her fledgling bones and she is so far from—

—home?

Betrayal it seems, but it feels as if with this Human-being and his Nautolan friend—wherever they are, to wherever they are going— _that_ their destination, and hers truly: home.

The sway of the waters—filtered, recycled, slowly scrubbed free of all traces of Mon Cala—wax dark, wax light. She supposes these are created echoes of the day, the night, without stars, without sun. The shifting energy of wakefulness and sleep surround her—but all around her, careful, cautious, too, that Light: soft-water-thick, like the fluid of her egg sac, but more than mere thin membrane, oh, that had so delicately cradled her life in such fragile balance with a thousand lurking deaths.

She listens to their song, these two—sounds she does not understand—but reverberating through the water catch their voices—

Soft-syllables they sing most often, again, again, and they carry memories, oh, as if reworkings of the _ptamari_ ’s signs. _Bant Eerin_ , the thread of them—and a hundred subtle variations— _little, dearling, young_ _one._ She presses herself against the gentle hands that slip down into the waters, bearing on their fingers kelp and protein paste. Sweet laughter rumbles over her and the Light swells and dances bright.

And then, at last, she feels another lurch, senses something slowed and calmed, senses the strain of that great durasteel beast fighting something she doesn’t understand—some inexorable force that would dash it to the ground and swallow it in smoke and flame—

And they are still, are still, and the vessel is half-wrapped up in the Human-being’s robe (soft darkness!) and she blinks and oh, it’s bright, it’s clear and _bright_ and from the shadows cast she stares with wide, wide silver eyes at another sky, another sun. And to welcome her, wash over her, a thousand quiet-bright glimmers in the Light, a thousand songs of peace and hope.

* * *

Kit notices Qui-Gon folding and refolding his hands as they ride the turbolift up to the Council chambers. The late-afternoon Coruscanti sun blasts burnished orange against the plated durasteel, the smooth transparisteel at their backs, the billions of unblinking eyes peering out from buildings—windows—ah—

The emptiness.

They do not speak of it.

Indeed, the Temple is awash with exultation—it’s rare indeed when a new crècheling finds a home within these sacred walls. Rumors spread quickly, growing into truth. They are neither alone nor wanting for company.

But to give her over to the Crèche-Master—

It will not be forever. But for the moment they must allow her to forget them, to fade in memory until their role, their visages, their familiar energies, are only something borne to her again, if ever, on the Force’s tide. Attachments are forbidden—and far too easy it would be—

“Are you alright, my friend?” Kit allows, at last, as he’s scarcely done of late, the whisper of Qui-Gon’s unfiltered emotions to pass across his tendrils. Whatever good she’s wrought in him, whatever she’s so skillfully helped him turn back into place, is fresh and hale and whole. A piece but of a shattered man—and yet—

Qui-Gon leans his head back against the transparisteel a moment, tongue half-tracing his lips—perhaps the memory of salt. “I do not know.”

A half-cracked gaze meets Kit’s, the unshed waters of indigo eyes blazing bright. A shudder passes through the Human’s massive frame, a working of his bearded jaw, the twitching of his hands that he hastily conceals within the sleeves of his robes. As if the totality of what they’ve done, _she’s_ done, has struck him finally. The counterbalance of the Light to Darkness is not always an easy thing to bear.

“Kit—”

“When the Council has seen us,” the Nautolan murmurs, the turbolift whispering to a stop beneath their feet, “—afterwards—”

_We will talk. I promise you. Bring me the gift of your troubles; you’ll not bear them alone._

A nod of Qui-Gon’s head, a blink, a pause. Together they inhale, exhale, in tandem; together standing in the water-Light. And then, for the first time in years beyond Kit’s conscious reckoning, his friend leads them into the Council chambers with his head held high.

* * *

“Well you have done.” The curve of his gimer stick flashes in the ruddy light as Yoda turns it over in his claws. “A cause for celebration, the finding of a crècheling always is.”

“The Force was with us,” Qui-Gon answers. “And with Bant.”

“Word has reached us from Crèche-Master Ali-Alann that the Force is strong with her,” Ki-Adi Mundi smiles, the smooth crest of his cranium mirroring the sunset as gaily as the polished-stone floors, the hairs of his goatee caught, as wispy kindling, alight. “Time will tell where her destiny lies.”

 _What impressions did you form of her?_ From the shadows rumble the four-throated strains of Master Aamaw Waawat, the Ithorian’s calm energy slipping across Kit’s tendrils like the rustle of foliage, the soft-glossed turnings of a newleaf: fecund soil and sunlight and tangy rain. Instinct born of a life in the Temple, spent among a few species whose physiology renders them unable to speak Basic, transcribes the Master’s native tongue, the low-hummed pitches and turnings of his mouths. He is somber, as always, but the soft opalescence of his aging eyes bespeaks a quiet joy.

But neither Waawat’s question nor his emotions are entirely focused on Bant—Kit bows his head a moment, searching across the venerable Masters gathered there around them in a circle. He need not turn to find at his back Plo-Koon, or Yaddle—far less ancient than Yoda but no less wise, herself—nor the other Council members—for their presence in the Force, their whispered, restrained taste against his tendrils, are as good as their hands upon his shoulders.

And there—the crux of it—though Kit winces at the thought of being privy to more than he ought—

 _Qui-Gon speaks._ Echoed in variations, rippled from one to the next in the circle of the Council’s chairs, the chamber—and beyond that, oh, beyond that only solid shielding-walls: the discipline not merely of the Masters but beings keenly aware of sitting in the presence of a Nautolan.

But the moment, the veil parted oh-so-slightly back that he might understand, bespeaks compassion. In it Kit glimpses other moments—many—over the past few years where Qui-Gon has stood within their midst as still and mute as stone. And here, that façade cracked at last, the stone beginning to break and beneath it flesh and blood drawing a gasping breath, free from the smothering grip of Darkness; beneath it a spirit struggling through rocky soil—

Kit’s tendrils dance and he gasps, shuddering beneath the _weight_ of it, seeing it afresh through the Council’s eyes. No small wonder had it been to him, these past two weeks with Qui-Gon, least of all with Bant (dear-quiet silver wellspring in the Force)—but what is it to _them_ , who have been observant of the Human’s struggle—waiting—watching—time and again—who sent him away a broken man, their own hopes failing, and to find before them now—?

They are silent, the both of them, for what seems a breath too long; Kit can feel the Masters’ eyes on him, can sense them expecting him to speak. And then Qui-Gon tilts his head, hair bursting into flame for a moment, smoldering to shadow, and his mountainous form is strength and humility, sorrow and a spark of—

This is not the man who came with him, who stood with him in the turbolift but minutes before. Even before his eyes, oh, this is Qui-Gon gathering himself unto himself, drawing the Living Force around him, soaking in the Light, drinking deep the waters—

Kit fixes his gaze to the ceiling, inhaling slowly, willing the tremors to still, willing his hearts to cease pounding.

“Here I am.”

“We sent you to Mon Cala to accompany Kit Fisto, this is true,” Ki-Adi murmurs. “Though we had no expectations, we hoped that the energy of a crècheling in the Force might . . . help you regain your perspective. The loss of Xanatos—from the Order, to the Dark Side—is regrettable, but he is neither the first nor the last to stray from the Path. Many have done so before, and will do so again: as younglings, and a few even as Masters.

“This is a responsibility a Master must accept, upon acquiring an apprentice: that he can never choose his student’s destiny. And for all that, a Jedi must _never_ be curved inwards, towards himself. Least of all in grief or self-inflicted rage or Dark deception. Least of all when another being wounds him.

“And what have _you_ done, hm, these past three years?”

“Reflect on the past, a Jedi should,” Yaddle counsels softly. “Live in it, he should not.”

Qui-Gon purses his lips a moment; a conglomerate of emotions stifle the air, cloy and thick, tender and bitter. It’s not so much the Masters’ words that the Human wrestles with, Kit knows—acerbic, tempered truth that they are in turn—

But what is there to say?

What can _Qui-Gon_ say? For this must come from him alone; Kit’s intentions, however good, and his insights, however Force-blessed he may be with tendril-tongues keen on chemicals and pheromones and signatures—they mean nothing now, when the Council sits here in judgement of his friend—as if an errant Padawan, himself . . .

A smile seems to hover at the Human’s lips when finally he answers, following, perhaps instinctively, the ritualized formula for a youngling or Padawan to admit wrongdoing, error, harm.

“I have been curved inwards towards myself—Master Mundi speaks the truth. The loss of Xanatos I took as my own failing, as if I alone had the power to keep the boy from following his anger, his hatred, his greed, down the path of the Dark Side. I took him as my Padawan because I saw the seeds of Darkness in him, self-assured—prideful, arrogant—thinking I could keep him in the Light. What pride and arrogance, my own . . .

“And so when he Fell, it was _my_ fault—or so I thought. I was so sure that I could change him, could keep him from becoming . . . What am I to the will of the Force, but a man? Perhaps—” Qui-Gon pauses a moment, uncertain, but the thought hangs hungrily, will gnaw at the minds of all of them, if left unsaid. “Perhaps it is the will of the Force that some _must_ Fall.”

“A choice, there _always_ is.” The butt of Yoda’s gimer stick cracks against the floor. “Nine hundred years have I served the Force, the Jedi; many have I seen stray from the Light. Cast from the Order. Fallen. Many have I seen depart in peace—along a different path, their destiny.”

“Yes, Master, but—”

 _Your answer to my question—what impressions this little Mon Calamarian crècheling gave you—was to say, simply, “Here I am.”_ Waawat leans forward, his wrinkled plantlike skin mottled in the purpling fringes of the sky. _Yes, Qui-Gon Jinn—yes, here you are. Explain?_

And the sweetest sound washes over Kit—the rush of waters, oh, the dazzled Light dancing, singing green-struck aura—the timbered basso, rich and deep, of Qui-Gon’s laughter. But there is no mirth: it is somber, awed: the ecstatic disbelief of a man when reminded of all the more than he is—and all he is. And if he sees by silver light how much he’s lost, how far he’s fallen (if not wholly Fallen, yet), then—

“Knight Fisto.” Yoda’s voice, the Grand Master’s aged and ageless energy, draw Kit inexorably back: the Chamber floor beneath his feet, inlaid with stones from a hundred worlds; the Coruscanti sun, snuffed now by creeping twilight. Qui-Gon’s presence at his side—no shadow now. “Time it is for you to leave us. Hear, we will, your briefing later. Time, now, we must spend alone with Qui-Gon.”

“Masters.” Kit studies the floor, his boots, allowing his gaze to take in the room, the full circumference, as he turns: the twelve pairs of eyes shifting to meet his. The thirteenth, last—

He feels, briefly, the brush of Qui-Gon’s robe against his own, the faintest hush of fabric, nothing more.

* * *

The waters are cold, are dark; night gives the illusion of greater depth than this, one of the Temple’s few outer pools, allows. The walls atop which the yellow-sabered, faceless Guards keep watch cast shadows stretched long over the tended plants, sole greenery-oasis. The sounds and scurryings of Coruscant’s billions still reach him, amplified and muffled, but Kit doesn’t mind so much. He needs no silence, nor is water ever so.

The pool is a relic from many centuries past, and the artificial floor is no conglomerate of duracrete but living stone against his flesh. Kit, tucked into a recess, lets the tempo of his hearts find slower measure, casting himself upon the currents of the Force, sinking somewhere deep indeed—and bright—

_There is no emotion; there is peace. There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. There is no passion; there is serenity. There is no chaos, there is harmony. There is no death; there is the Force . . . There is no emotion; there is peace . . ._

The mantra of the Code keeps the rhythm of the blood in his veins, the current of his thoughts. Kit is still, is empty, whole. Parsing through the time spent in the shuttle, on Mon Cala—even back to the cold tea he shared with Qui-Gon—each moment as real to him as this, as _now_. Empty, whole.

It’s good to be back at the Temple again—the familiar corridors, the streaming Coruscanti sun, the peaceful energies of his brothers, sisters, of the Order, in the Force. To uncoil his limbs at last and spar against the Weapons Master, though raw-stinging scores along his arms and hands bespeak less success than hard tutelage. This, too, he doesn’t mind. Better to suffer burns at a Master’s blade than lose a limb—or, needlessly, his life.

He tilts back his head, the cool fingers of the alcove’s shadow soft against his eyes—oh, the shuttle was _glaring_ . . .

The dingy too-bright runnerlights and the masses of their fellow travelers: restive, bottled in its berths, choking its corridors, filthying the ’fresher—

Empty, whole. Sacrifices in the service of the Light—for, too, can the Light be shadow, and if it is warmth without heat, so too it is cooling balm, bacta-smooth, for the spirit and crude matter . . .

A smile tugs at his lips, soft and still. Qui-Gon, too, is glaring-bright within the Force—

The image of him, silhouetted, standing there alone before the Council, flickers back with startling alacrity. Kit counts a measure of his hearts, rhythm-counterrhythm, teasing out traces of the Code— _There is no emotion—there is no passion—_

Empty, whole.

Until the water-current changes—a charge against his tendrils, a rush against his ears: a massive form plunging into the dancing waterplane, shattering the sky. The smile tugging at his lips becomes a full-fledged sharp-toothed grin, and Kit rockets from the alcove, living-singing-stone rough against his feet, oh even these recycled waters who’ve so forgotten the river of their birth, the clouds, _laughing_ —

* * *

“You are not the man who stood with me in the turbolift,” Kit murmurs, carefully worrying the knots in Qui-Gon’s sodden hair. “When you were before the Council . . . ” He pauses, uncertain of the words, slipping his hands to trace circles at the Human’s temples, the quiet weight of Qui-Gon’s head laid firm upon Kit’s shoulder, the broad-rippled plane of his back warm against the Nautolan’s chest. Slowly he inhales.

They sit in the shallow end of the pool, in the shadow cast by the wall, hidden by foliage from view of the Temple Guards’ masked eyes. But they seem exposed, somehow—and there’s something in Qui-Gon’s energy, in his, that Kit can neither name nor is he sure he wants to. Perhaps the rush of seeing Qui-Gon Jinn at last, as—ah—not as he always was but _is—_ but for the first time in so long, so long, no longer tasting at Kit’s tendrils of filth and rot and—

The water whispers as Qui-Gon lifts a hand, hesitating, drawing it slowly there against the hollow of Kit’s cheek.

He is aware, Kit knows, and keenly, of the gravity of this—the gift of being held in the Nautolan’s arms. Few indeed could claim a moment such as this—the crossing of the last remaining threshold available to his species, who read and taste all beings in the galaxy; who are privy to an endless stream of unfiltered pheromones and emotions perhaps beyond a being’s conscious reckoning; who _know_ —who know perhaps too much—

And then Kit—all Jedi—who see the galaxy laid bare before them through the Force—

One simply does not touch a Nautolan.

And yet—

“I am the same, Kit Fisto.” Soft, lost almost to the water-whisper; down the Human’s broad and rough hand moves along Kit’s jaw. “As I _am_ —as I should have been. How lost I was . . . but now . . . ”

_You taste of sweetness, blue-sky—broken-dawnlight—reaching-trees._

Kit exhales, begins kneading at the knots in Qui-Gon’s shoulders. “What did the Council say?”

“That the mission to find Bant Eerin was a test,” comes the answer, slowly. “That if I’d returned the same, they would have . . . intervened. That they were waiting for me to _ask_ for help, and if I’d been proven again incapable—stubborn—prideful . . . if my Darkness had encroached upon the light of that little crècheling . . . ”

Kit halts his ministrations, willing himself to grow lax, willing the sudden spike of irrational fear to burn bright and hot and _out_ —for here before him is his friend. What may have been was not, is not. “They would have cast you from the Order?”

“No. I do not believe so. But . . . ” The hand that had rested at his jaw trembles for a moment. Kit peers down into Qui-Gon’s upturned face, the eyes that had been closed so quietly, with such tranquil bliss, now flicker open and stare into his own—what they must look like, oh, his own—echoes of the onyx sky—

A shake of Qui-Gon’s head. “It doesn’t matter.”

Perhaps. And not. And perhaps there are lessons his friend must learn alone. Or paths that Kit can’t tread.

And the touch at his jaw flutters down, lost to the darkness, and a shudder wracks Kit’s frame as calloused skin, all fine-bones and sinew and strength, with desperate tenderness, curls about a tendril.

“Here I am.”

The same words as to Master Waawat—

But then, oh, behind the words, what the Council could never be allowed to see—Qui-Gon’s presence, rippling, cavorting, quiet-sprung life reborn, the flesh leaping from the stone, not merely gasping at the cracks, reveling in Light, reveling in waters—in quiet, steadfast warmth—all the gratitude beyond speaking—

 _Everything_ beyond speaking.

At this Kit can’t help but smile, for it’s as if, however briefly, his friend understands what it is to speak without words—to taste the galaxy—as his species have spoken thus to one another for millennia. But more. But more. Because Qui-Gon can never really speak that way with him—

“Here I am.”

The whispered echo.

“Yes.”

They are still, are still, until the rhythm of Kit’s hearts fades in his ears because the sway-song of the Light is louder yet. His hands caress the Human’s form—the water-slick skin drying in the air, droplets clinging to the thicket-hair along his arms, his chest, and _down_ and Kit would ask, perhaps, if this is some . . . impropriety . . . but Qui-Gon’s body is so warm and whole against his own, his energy washing over Kit in rush-hushing waves—as if echoing his hearts, the quickening thrum of blood in his own veins.

The crude matter must be stripped away. They are vessels of the Light, but oh, what brightness, oh, Qui-Gon’s body like a great-green-tree, alight, alight and velvet-hard and weeping water-life beneath Kit’s hand.

Even in the Force, Qui-Gon creeps upon the shores, the shoals, teasing at Kit’s own steadfast resolution.

Those indigo eyes are star-stung, the pupils swollen; musk and need and life-root flood Kit’s senses; what emptiness is there, what wholeness now; he _burns_.

The Human shifts: careful, silent gestures, that his movements don’t betray them: that the stones do not clatter scattering, that the waters do not laugh so loudly. For the brief moment in which Kit might mourn such loss, his grief is short. Soon enough that massive body lies supine in his shadow, an offering of things they do not understand, impelling them, coercing, and he wraps Qui-Gon in his arms again, that the fragile skin of his back not press against the rough-hewn stones—

And Kit can’t help but gasp, overcome with the sensations, oh, the _touch._ The hair he’d worked so hard to untangle cascading thick and sodden-knotted in his hands—the prodding heat nudging at his belly, the Human’s canted hips and Qui-Gon’s hands burning there against his thighs—

Short-sharp breaths and cries muffled with shaking, desperate fingers, palms, because oh, this will leave traces—oh, this will echo and resound within the Force and it’s dangerous, it’s utter _foolishness_ —but for this one single moment—let the Guards not hear—let the star-eyes close—let all of Coruscant go dark or go loud enough to drown them out—

—and oh, Qui-Gon is the steadfast-rooted tree, twitching-offering, and Kit the seeking thick-vine ’round him twining—

Clumsily they rock and sway and grasp to reconcile root and vine, to tangle limbs just so, to find purpose and rhythm, seeking something of the self-same end but not knowing what it is, not quite, nor each how the other finds it.

But only now, in the stark strains of the primordial struggle, do they realize quite how close the Human came to death, of one kind or another. How insidious the Darkness, how brief and bright the spark—what affirmation of the spark—pouring itself across Kit’s tendrils—heat-need love-root, straining, striving—

Kit is still, ever the rock, patiently catching the rhythm, holding it for both of them: still but for the coital vine that wraps itself again, again around, in time to juddering-sharp rocking-hipped feather-stroked thrusts—Qui-Gon’s body shaking uncontrollably beneath him, mewling cries now without end.

Kit allows his weight to bear down with tender ferity, enough only to whisper _Stillness, let this be, struggle not but follow me, here-sweet—slow, slow, slow—do you want it over soon?—suffer pleasure for a little longer with me yet._

“Oh, Force— _Kit_ —”

Drawn-cry threaded thrice-over in time with spurted liquid seed, decibels caught with harsh abandon somewhere there against Kit’s shoulder, beard-bristles raking, chapped lips pressed against his skin, buried in the tendrils given wild life, fallen as a thicket there around Kit’s head—and Qui-Gon’s too—as if some sweet moment of solitude, something they alone will know, will see—

—and oh—a charge shoots through his body—the pleasure’s more than he can bear; it drives him on, relentless, soft voice risen, cracked and keening, pouring water-seed his own from such a shattered vessel.

How blinding-blessed the Light, and how desperately they shudder to receive it.

* * *

Qui-Gon has long since collapsed in his arms, dear-familiar form, their bodies twined a different way, all tangled limbs, all searching for some comfort from the stone-strewn floor, the water quietly lapping at them, washing away with demur, straightforward prudery all traces of their doings.

Do the waters judge them?

Does the Light?

Kit remains awake, staring up into the stars. He cannot bear to look upon his friend, not yet, not this way, when he is deep in the sleep of the satiated, when somewhere in Kit’s hearts there twists a knife, a doubt, a truth. An ache already haunting him, that he will dream of this often, that he will want this yet again and for all his days henceforth, and _terribly_ —and all the worse for it having become more than dream but realized in the flesh.

With guilt he considers that Qui-Gon is velvet-soft against his thigh and Kit’s own body already betrays him, begging for unseemly _more_ —the single-swollen procreative tendril jerking and twining ’round the hand that, as Qui-Gon slept, had come to cradle him so tenderly—such a gesture that Kit nearly wants to weep.

But none of this—not even in sleep—does he sense from Qui-Gon himself: he tastes of soil after rain, of peace, of a man content in his body and a Jedi content in the Light. As if there is nothing to reconcile, no wrong having been done, no breaking of their vows, the Code.

Kit smooths a trace of hair back from Qui-Gon’s brow, then sets to worrying the knots.


End file.
